Masood case: Court observes conspiracy

Statesman News Service | October 1, 2013 8:08 pm

STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE
New Delhi, 1 October
A city court today noted that convicted Rajya Sabha MP Rasheed Masood had created a special medical seat for Tripura "as a very special case as a one-time concession" and later nominated an undeserving candidate on it.
Special CBI judge J P S Malik noted that Masood had called the file concerned to his office in September 1990 and as per a note therein, one more seat of MBBS was allocated to Tripura "as a very special case as a one-time concession".
That seat was then allotted to one Sachidanand Dwivedi. Son of a Lucknow-based journalist, Sachidanand, was also sentenced to one-year jail term today but given bail to approach the higher court against his conviction and/or sentence.
The court observed that there was a conspiracy. "There can be no special case for one-time concession if the seat in question was never to be allocated to a candidate from Tripura… Since the conspiracies are hatched in secrecy, there can be no better evidence of linkage of Rasheed Masood with co-accused Gurdial Singh and Sachidanand Dwivedi in the circumstance of the case", said the court, adding that Dwivedi was well aware of the fact that he was not eligible for being nominated to the MBBS seat as a nominee of Tripura.
It added that it is a simple case of creating one seat by Rasheed Masood, making nomination to the seat by other accused Gurdial Singh and taking advantage of the seat allocated in the name of government of Tripura by third accused Sachidanand. The court also noted that Masood’s nephew had been nominated by him for the medical seat. Masood, however, said after the judgment, "I am innocent. Hundred percent innocent." The court held Masood and other accused pursued a common object.